In recent years, research and development of control technology are being carried out, the control technology for performing various control operations for supporting the safety of a driver by utilizing vehicle-to-vehicle communication to be performed between vehicles and/or road-to-vehicle communication to be performed between a communication device installed on the roadside and a vehicle.
Regarding to this, an information providing system for vehicles is known that includes a transmission source vehicle and a target vehicle, the transmission source vehicle being configured to detect a target vehicle which may be a potential obstacle to own-vehicle, by performing vehicle-to-vehicle communication with another vehicle, the target vehicle being configured to transmit information on own-vehicle to the transmission source by performing vehicle-to-vehicle communication with the transmission source vehicle, to detect the intention of a driver of own-vehicle to decelerate the own-vehicle, and to transmit a result of the detection to the transmission source vehicle (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-210198). The information providing system for vehicles sets a timing for providing the information on the target vehicle to a driver based on the detection result received by the transmission source vehicle from the target vehicle, and thus it is possible to provide the information to a driver at an appropriate timing.
Also, a radio communication device is known that is capable of transmitting and receiving vehicle information and position information, the vehicle information regarding own-vehicle and/or another vehicle obtained by vehicle-to-vehicle communication and/or road-to-vehicle communication, the position information being expressed in terms of the latitude and longitude regarding the vehicle information (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-085202). The radio communication device allows a transmission source vehicle to reduce at least part of the information of the latitude and longitude of own-vehicle and to transmit the reduced part of the information to a target vehicle which is a vehicle on the receiving side. The target vehicle then restores the received information of the latitude and longitude of the transmission source vehicle. In this manner, the radio communication device may achieve high-speed vehicle-to-vehicle communication and road-to-vehicle communication.
However, in the related art, no consideration is given to appropriate selection of a target vehicle which may be a potential obstacle to own-vehicle. For this reason, the accuracy in safety control may not be sufficient.